I will forever be grateful to Favreau for the dynamite casting of RDJ as Tony Stark and setting up the fundamental tone of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, but yeah, it probably would've been better. That is not to say that Iron Man is bad, it's still the best Superhero origin movie put to celuloid. But Whedon has the skill to better even that.

But I'm happy with how things played out. Something to consider though is back when this almost happend, New Line Cinema held the film rights to Iron Man. And as we've seen with other Marvel films where the character was being leased out to another studio, would they have let Whedon make the film he wanted to?

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"Is it fear or courage that compels you, fleshling?"

Would it have been better? Anything is possible but my gut says NO! Whedon did great on Avengers but I still think IM1 edges it out as the better movie. Of course I consider IM1 to be the pinacle of ALL superhero movies. It's just the closest of any superhero film I've seen has come to being perfect. But I don't doubt Whedon could make a great Iron Man movie.

It happened perfectly the way it did; Favs and RDJ and Fiege all created a masterpiece that led us to where we are today. Anything else would have been inferior; that being said Whedon's great and I don't think anyone else could've made the Avengers as great as it was.